Imperfect Solution
by VerelLupin
Summary: Skye had been taken from him and brought back but she's changed. Turned into something Coulson wasn't sure of but had to take care of even if it changed him too. He loved her too much not to try. Skye knows what she's doing can't be right but who is she to argue with Coulson? Why would she? But can they get past the insanity of the moment and build something real? Coulskye
1. Imperfect Solution

**I saw T.R.A.C.K.S. and this popped into my head. I am as baffled as you are.  
**

**Enjoy...I guess?**

* * *

It was hard and unexpected the first time.

Clothes shoved open, shallow breathing and bodies quickly joining together and hands gripping with equal parts pain and pleasure. Lips between teeth and eyes squeezed shut and silent vows that this would not happen again. It couldn't happen again.

But even as the sweat cooled and the garments are rearranged he knows she'll return and they'll be in the same positions with the same broken promises being spoken as they chase the same highs. Because they've seen a way to cope with the losses, the only way.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, it wasn't supposed be a near rape of the man she loved. It should have been an expression of desire and adoration from the woman he loved.

It was meant to be slow and tender and all the soft mushy things that meant love.

He was supposed to whisper sweet nothings, not tell her that it was okay and that it wasn't her fault.

She'd come back from the dead but she'd come back damaged. She'd come back broken and there had been so many pieces missing that it all but guaranteed that he'd be unable to put her back together.

She made advances on Leo and Ward but both had resisted, both had fought her and told her that sex would not sustain her.

Coulson had given what he'd thought she'd needed, what he'd arrogantly assumed only he could give.

He'd given her his mutually scarred body hoping that would quench the terrible ache that developed after each and every mission.

It had been a series of simple kisses that exploded into a violent frenzy of pulling and yanking off his jacket and tie. Sets of caresses that her raising her skirts or dragging down her pants and pulling him onto her uncaring of the scattering of papers on his desk.

He'd fallen prey to her enchanting darkness and he was unable to escape it now.

She was being consumed by it and knowing that his light was disappearing into her made her reckless and bold. Made her want every little bit of his soul regardless of what it did to him and he'd been too happy to oblige.

May had tried to stop it, had tried to make Skye see reason but it had been Coulson who told her to back off. He was too caught up in it, in them to get out.

He was helpless to stop her needs, unwilling to let her suffer alone.

He endures the scratches and bites and scathing words she flings at him in her rage. The kisses filled with salty tears and the apologies for his ruined clothes and the hurt feelings that come after.

He softens her animalistic cravings as much as he can but she begs for more the nicer he becomes.

He's too deeply invested in her and she eating him up from the inside but he doesn't care.

She strips him to the bone, breaks through the sardonic smiles. She clutches the heart that beats an unsteady rhythm every time she gets that gleam in her eyes that ends with her draped on his lap and full of him until she leaves on unsteady legs.

He had nothing but this job before and he'd been content. That was not the case now. He needs her more than breathing, needs her to get past this, needs her with him not against him.

He's trying to save her without destroying himself and in those brief moments when her face shines with peace and their voices blend, Phillip Coulson feels like her hero, her avenger.

He's dying and coming back from the dead every time she reaches for him but he'll keep doing it. He'll take the abuse; let her dictate when and where and how as long as she holds onto him.

He will sacrifice it all if it means he can regain the old Skye, the one that gave him hope when his was lost. The one he never confessed to but always loved.

It was an imperfect solution but it was the only one he had.


	2. Imperfect Is Not Okay

**Skye's side of it, I guess. **

**Because I can? I don't know why...**

* * *

She didn't look at him as she zipped up her jeans. They never talk until both are fully covered. It's an unspoken rule they created early on.

"I'm dressed," he said and she turned to face him but her eyes wouldn't lift farther than his immaculately polished black shoes. Once in a while she feels shame, once in a while she remembers who they used to be.

Apparently so does he, "it can stop. Anytime you need it to."

"I don't, not yet, unless you..." she leaves it open. Leaves him before he answers, leaves him studying his keepsakes like she does every time he brings it up, and ever since this has become their routine.

It used to be animal urges that drove her, now its because she enjoys being connected to the one person that makes her feel human.

She had felt alien, she was alien and it wasn't just the serum that had been injected into her. She knew that she was different. Sure she'd tried Fitz and Ward first but they treated her differently. Coulson didn't and that was why she'd taken the ultimate decision away from him. He would have stopped her if she had asked him to piece her back together.

He would have found another way, she couldn't deal with another way.

That's when she first realized that something had gone missing when she came back from the other side, never would have done what she did otherwise. And yet he'd been the only one who promised to get it back for her and she knew he'd do everything in his power to keep his promise.

At first it was just to feel something other than the emptiness, loneliness and isolation but everything has changed now. Now it's a habit, a bad one but it's a constant in her shifting world. His warm embrace and the soft hands that run down her spine after she's ambushed him in the dead of night are the only supports that can keep her upright.

He is cracking; she feels it and traces the tiny fissures that line his eyes. Feels it and tastes the bitter pull of his lips that becomes more obvious every time they lift to say her name. He feels shakier under her hands and it's her doing and she's incapable of ending it.

She wants him, craves him too much too fight her own disgust for mixing her dark shades with his light, turning their world ever darker. It should have been different, had dreamed it softer and slow and not so violent.

She still doesn't really understand what happened that first time. Jemma had given the okay and released her and then she'd gotten dressed. She still didn't know why she'd chosen the red dress, the one he'd picked her up in.

She just remembers going straight to his office. She was already undoing the dress, like it wasn't even her anymore and in a way it wasn't, this was pure instinct. When he looked up, the ties of it are slipping to the sides and loosing around her body with every step she takes.

He watched from his desk, frozen by her actions, his mouth pressed into such a thin line she has a hard time making it out. "Skye," he had said warningly.

But she wasn't looking for approval; she didn't know what she was looking for. She just knew that being near him is what she needed. Then she's in his lap and he's trying to close her dress, trying to still the hands that are pulling on his belt.

He grabs her hips desperate to halt her jerky movements but she's more determined than he expected. She's more fragile, she kisses him and his lips taste salty and she's not even aware she's crying until he lets go of her waist to console her and she uses her freedom to undo his resolve.

She whimpers against his chest and he relents and now they're joined and fractured at the same time. She sinks onto him, holding onto his shoulders with a punishing grip that will leave marks but he doesn't stop it or join in her frantic movements.

He lets her do what she needs to do and when she's spent, she says nothing. She rises from his lap and ties her dress back on and she walks out of his office not daring to see what kind of expression he's wearing.

And that is how her corruption of him begins.

After the first time she stops caring about his desire or willingness to be taken and she does take him. She uses him to achieve the release she needs to sleep without shattering glassware with her screams or catching things on fire when the nightmares become too real. She ignores the slight blankness that turns his blue eyes icy whenever she demands more of his attention.

The serum burns through her and her powers are manifesting.

He alone knows how much stronger she is, how much more effort it takes to peel her off him when he can't bear to have her touch him. Yet she goes back for more even though he's scared of her and for her and she scared of herself and of hurting him. He tries to calm her like the dangerous animal she's becoming.

He acts like he's not built to be a hero and she isn't the villain. She forces him to be more than a supporting character with a few lines, yells at him to break free of her for his own good but he's always been a martyr to the cause, and she fits the bill. So she lets him be what keeps her sane and struggling to reach for the self that is at the edges of her mind. His voice the one that screams inside her head that she is destroying them.

He wishes for his old Skye and she demands he be the old Phillip, she's heard so much about.

That Phillip would surely and swiftly stop her but then Skye panics and ensnares him again with the wounded girl shimmering beneath the surface. Phil wants to save her, who is she to stop him?

The guilt returns and she tries to taper off, tries to keep from crawling into his bed but by then it doesn't matter. Now he comes to her. Now he's addicted and she doesn't pretend that she isn't happy to be his drug of choice.

She is devouring what's left of his integrity and when Ward begs her to stop it she shrugs her shoulders. It's not just her choice anymore. Coulson is okay with this imperfect solution but it won't hold for long. This fusing of their bodies is crumbling any chance to go back to the real Skye and the real Coulson she fell in love with, the one she allowed in.

What they are doing, what she's doing to him, could never by the farthest stretch of imagination, ever be called okay. They are in a terrible state but she's so afraid she'll lose him altogether that she keeps going, keeps telling him that it is all she can offer him. Its messy but its theirs for now.

Imperfect is not okay but neither are they.


End file.
